Day 56, 57 and 58

This is the last post about my adventures "across the pond" because I'm home now!! It was the most amazing two months of my life but I am excited to be back with my family and getting excited for JMU!

Day 56 aka freeee

So I turned in my final the night before, so Thursday was truly my first entirely free day in London where I didn't have to worry about any pending coursework. I wanted to see Wicked if I could get a half price deal from TKTS or something. Regular tickets are like 55 pounds in the dress circle (balcony). So I saw online that if you go stand out in line at 10am at the theatre they have some "day seats" available. That just means they haven't sold out and want to so they sell them at discounted prices/ they also sell some front row seats for insanely cheap. I was probably 20th in line (and you can buy 2 per person)... and near the end, so I was worried that I might not get a seat. They advertised online that you could get a student ticket for 27 pounds in the best available seat, so I was hoping for that. I got up to the counter and asked for a student ticket, but the box office guy told me they didn't have any. I was preparing myself for disappointment, but I asked what the best they had was. He had a seat in the dress circle for 22.50! I was like, this has to be a joke, so I asked if it was restricted view or something. NOPE! It was the 4th to last row and in the center of the section. AWESOME.

After I got my ticket it was about 10:30 so I decided to hop one stop over to the Victoria and Albert Museum again because I wanted to see the Theatre and Performance exhibit. It used to be its own museum but it's a small collection so it moved to the V&A in 2007. My mom got me a book about it for Christmas, which is how I knew to look for it. It was sooo cool. There were scripts, scores, costumes, posters, set models, masks, a star trap and a huge rhino costume! I loved seeing all these old parts of theatre history as well as some of the more recent stuff, like a costume from Elton John and Kylie Minogue's dressing room.

I returned to the flat just as it started to rain-- I missed a downpour by a few minutes! I made lunch and made plans to go for a walk after the rain. I bought some last minute gifts that I needed for people and enjoyed my last real look at my neighborhood.

I made an early dinner and got ready to go to WICKED!!! I was so excited, especially because I know the soundtrack by heart and I've read the books, but this was my first time seeing it. And it was the only musical I saw while in London. I left at about 6:10, and I'm glad I did because the subway was PACKED. I got to the theatre at about 7 and bought a program. In the UK, they don't give you a playbill automatically. You have to buy one, but it has more information than a US program does. The ones I bought at plays were 3-4 pounds and this one was 7, so that was disappointing. But I got one anyway, because I collect programs and this was for Wicked!! I also ended up paying a pound to rent binoculars from the seat in front of me, which I'm glad I did because I could see faces and just see the whole spectacle. My seat was really good for the price and the show was fantastic! I got back to the house at 11 and no one was home, so I did some planning for my last day in London and went to bed.

Day 57 aka last day in London :(

I had reserved tickets for a masterclass on directing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The guest director was Tamara Harvey, and there were 6 actors who had recently graduated from masters programs who were given direction on scenes. It was so interesting to watch her work and I took some great notes for when I start my first project assistant directing for the JMU mainstage production of Our Country's Good, which goes up in October!

After the masterclass I rushed back to the house in order to get ready for the final banquet. It was held in a cafe in the crypt of a church called St. Mary Lebow's. Everyone was dressed up and it was a really fancy place. Claire made everyone paper plate awards that were so sweet. And we had dinner and talked and laughed and enjoyed one another's company for the last time :( I started tearing up when everyone started to make thank you toasts and speeches.

After dinner a few of us went walking on the Thames across the Millenium Bridge. The Thames is my favorite part of the city, so it was nice to spend my last evening in London there. Until it started raining... typical. Emily and I decided to head back and we ended the night finishing packing and getting ready to head for home!

Day 58 aka get me off this damn plane

I woke up naturally at 8, even though I set my alarm for 10. In that time, Sarah and I cleaned out all the trash and recycling and made sure Pam and Emily didn't leave anything. Our box for the next semester is overflowing. You're welcome, fall semester kids. We also went to Pret A Manger and got some lunch and got ready to leave. We were the last ones in the house. I was super sad about leaving, but at this point, I just wanted to get the day over with. We left at 11:30am London time, 6:30am DC time. The cab ride took about about an hour and fifteen minutes. We got into the line for check in at 1pm London time, 8am DC time. The check in line was short, so it was really quick, much quicker than Dulles to get to London. We got to the terminal at 1:30pm London time, 8:30am DC time. It turned out that Kent was on our flight because his earlier flight was cancelled. We tried to help him connect to our next flight from Canada to the US, but he kind of blew us off, so whatever. We tried to help you. We boarded at 2:45pm London time, 9:45am DC time. The flight was actually supposed to leave a little bit early, but stupid passengers who wouldn't just stay in their seats prohibited that. So we left at about 3:30pm London time, 10:30am DC time. On the flight I was sitting next to an English woman who just wanted to talk the whole time, even though I wanted to watch a movie and sleep. I ended up sleeping for about 45 minutes out of the entire flight. Somehow the flight's screens lost an hour, so the screen said we were landing at 4:50pm eastern time, but really we (finally) landed at 10:50 London time, 5:50pm DC time in Ottawa, Canada. The nice thing about Canada was that you can go through US Customs and Borders there, so we didn't have to do that at Dulles. We got to the gate at 6:30pm DC time, 11:30pm London time. The flight got delayed by about 10 minutes, so we boarded about an hour later at 7:30pm DC time, 12:30am London time. So by this point I'm dead tired. And the plane will not freaking take off. We were grounded for at least 20 minutes. It was an express plane, so there were only like 25 people on it, but it just took forever to get going. The flight itself was only an hour and a half, so we landed and parked at 9:30pm DC time, 2:30am London time. I am so so so anxious to get off the plane and see my mom and get to my house, but the ground crew just wouldn't come. We got off the plane via the cool little like celebrity stairs instead of the tunnel thing at 9:45pm DC time, 2:45am London time. There were some people trying to make transfers that didn't make them because the flight was supposed to land at 9:15pm. After making our way through the maze that is Dulles International, we FINALLY got to the baggage claim!!! I ran to hug my mom and sister and my cousin Maria, who also came to pick me up! I said goodbye to Sarah, who I won't see for another month :( but we were both excited to get home. Since I live so close to Dulles, we were home by about 10:30pm DC time, but I was still on London time and I felt like it was 3:30am. I gave out presents and finally went to sleep at 12am DC time, 5am London time.

This was the best summer of my life. I am so excited to read this blog in the future and relive all of these wonderful experiences with wonderful people.

Cheers,

Amanda

Days 53, 54 and 55

Day 53 aka FINALS WEEK BEGINS (aka amanda even out-stresses emily)

Monday I kicked off finals week with a ton of writing. I will probs get carpel tunnel... My right arm is still sore. I ended up having to write 2 essays each for politics and theatre. I ended up writing about 20 pages in total... yuck. I sent Jay an email because we didn't have the prompt for our final paper due Thursday at this point. After the theatre exam, I met up with the Forgiones and we went to My Old Dutch, the pancake house across from the nearest tube station. WHY HAVEN'T I GONE THERE BEFORE? It was sooo good. I had the asparagus and spinach, Cait had the apple cinnamon, and Aunt Vikki and Uncle Rob both had the duck one.

These pancakes were about 2x the size of a human head. Not kidding.

Best part of the deal is that it was only 5 pounds per pancake because they do this promotional thing called Monday Madness. Awesome. After we ate we tried to find a coffee place, but apparently London is a dead city after 7pm unless you're going to a pub. Even Starbucks was closed, so we took that as a sign to go our separate ways for the evening. I opened my email and found out Jay had lost our email addresses and had emailed the prompts to Charlotte to give to us on Friday, but I guess she thought that we were not doing a take home final so she didn't show them to us. It was too late to get them at that point, so I'll have from Tuesday to Thursday at noon to finish my last final.

Day 54 aka the most hilarious movie but actually the stupidest.

So after turning in our papers and giving our joke group presentation for Media and Society (ITS OVER!!!!!!!!), I worked on Jay's paper and waited for Cait to meet me at Holborn Station. We were going to go bowling since they had the London Pass and it was one of the activities it covered, but when we got to the bowling alley (which in London are super nice and have restaurants in them and stuff) they were "full" until 9:30pm. Even though no one there seemed to be using the lanes. So we decided it wasn't worth waiting 3 hours to bowl, so we went back to my flat. There we cooked gnocchi with pesto, drank one of the beers Cait brought for me from Germany and watched the most hilarious movie: Angus, Thongs and Snogging. It is based on a book series about a 14 year old British girl doing 14 year old things like stalking boys and practicing kissing their pillows and such. It was funny in a ridiculous way.

Day 55 aka the forgiones leave and amanda gets super stressed about finals

Uncle Rob and Cait came over early to put some clothes in the dryer and we waited for Aunt Vikki to check out of their flat. We rode a double decker bus, which Uncle Rob kept saying reminded him of Harry Potter, just a couple stops to Chipotle, which Cait really wanted to go to since they don't have them in Germany. After they left for the airport, I started working on my paper. And got really stressed about it. And it ended up being my longest paper for this semester, but I did have a lot to say. I was about halfway done by the time we got to our last weekly meeting :( and found out we were having an ice cream social that night in our flat... which was cool but I wish it was Thurs or Fri night so I could have enjoyed it instead of rushing to get back to my paper. And I never ate dinner...oops. I turned in my paper at around 11:30pm, so I didn't have to worry about it being late.

Days 48-52

Day 48 aka paperpaperpaperpaper

Wednesday started off just how I like it... with a nice sleep in :) Except I woke up pretty naturally around 10am anyway. So I worked on my paper for Jay's class and got excited about watching the seventh Harry Potter movie before the midnight release of the eighth. It was a very low key day, which was good because it's finals this upcoming week and I needed a second to work and pack and finish doing what I need done before I leave :( At the meeting we filled out course evaluations, which was good but really long. I can't believe we're already doing end of term things... I still feel like I just got here. After the meeting we took our group picture and I thought about how the next group of study abroad students will see this and not even begin to understand how close you will become with this group of people... until about halfway. When we first started going to meetings we had no idea who each other were, and now I feel like we're a big, weird, amazing family.

Day 49 aka last day of classes!

For Jay's class we went to Notting Hill Gate again, this time to go to the Museum of Brands and Advertising. It was a cool collection, but it ended up looking like someone's basement or garage threw up because of how small the space was. It was really interesting to see how the advertising and packaging have changed over the years for just one product. I especially liked the old Guinness ads that were designed around Alice in Wonderland or circus animals. After class I decided to take a nap since I had been up so late working on the paper for class and watching the 7th movie so I could go to the Harry Potter midnight showing! After sleeping for like 4 hours, I got up, made dinner and worked on my costume. I also figured out a new way to do my hair! I get frustrated with leaving it down these days because it's at a weird too-short-to-do-anything-with-but-too-long-to-leave-down length. Once Sarah got back we took some silly pics in our costumes

we're duelling with london in the background... see?

and then headed to Leicester Square! We got to see the movie in the same theatre where the London premiere was held! And since we were 8 rows back, perhaps sat in the same seats as some stars? (Probs not. But that's what we're gonna say). We ended up sitting next to a girl that Aja knew from high school... so weird!! The movie was amazing! We took a bus back and got home at around 3am. But then we were so wide awake that we just talked and hung out for a while... I think I finally went to bed around 4:30am. Good thing I didn't have classes on Friday!

Day 50 aka The Forgiones (minus 2) come to visit!!!

On Friday I naturally woke up early again... yuck. But it was a good thing, because I have a 2000 word paper due as my final on Tuesday and I needed to start it before Aunt Vikki, Uncle Rob and Cait got here. I got all of my sources ready and rewrote my thesis to better match what I think (hope) he is looking for. He didn't write any comments on my thesis when he handed it back but told me I should focus in more. So hopefully I've focused in enough. I also went to Ryman's and sent home a bunch of gifts... so no peeking Alla!! At about 8pm I went to Russell Square Station to meet up with Aunt Vikki and Uncle Rob. Turns out they had gotten there really early, but Aunt Vikki's phone died and Uncle Rob didn't have my mobile number here on his phone. We went back to my apartment to try to cancel the tickets for Harry Potter we had that night since Cait's flight was going to be late. Luckily, the call desk guy said he could refund them since I hadn't picked them up yet. They haven't put the money back on my card yet, but we did call around 9pm on a Friday so hopefully by Monday afternoon they will have refunded my debit card. Cait finally got to Russell Square at 10:30pm!! We got some Pret A Manger sandwiches (a ready made store here that is awesome and open late) and talked and it was great to see them!! Good thing we didn't keep the Harry Potter tickets because we would have been over an hour late.

Day 51 aka showtunes, perfumes and covent garden

I met Cait at their flat at 9am to go to Soho! Soho is a huge music area here with tons of record stores and jazz clubs, so I knew Cait would be interested. We found a store near Covent Garden that was called Dress Circle, The Showbiz Store. I could have spent hours in there. But we only had about 2 hours so on we went to the next. We got to a music store that sold instruments and sheet music. We still have to really hit the record stores, but we'll get to it another day that we're here. Cait can't really transport vinyls anyway, so it is more about looking around. On the way to the movie theatre, we heard a guy talking into a microphone about how he was giving away free perfumes. So we stopped, naturally. Basically if you paid half price for the one perfume, you got 4 other perfumes with it. We decided to split a bag, so it ended up being 10 pounds each for 5 perfumes. We split it when we got back to my flat based on which smells we liked. After the movie (the second time is better!) we went to get dinner and walk around Covent Garden. Unfortunately, since it was Saturday a lot of the stores were closing, but we had a nice (yet slanted) dinner and shared a pitcher of san gria (weird drinking with family, as i am still underage in the US) and had a nice time walking around. Then we went to Scoop, the favorite gelato place of the puppets. Delicious. Cait brought me a German beer with lemon in it, so we're going to drink them together and go out on Tuesday night.

Day 52 aka productivity

Today I finished my 2000 word paper that is due on Tuesday. I will have to look at it again tomorrow because I can't right now. But I know it's still a mess. I also have finished my part of our group presentation for the same class, and now I am studying for both of my finals tomorrow-- last day for media and politics and theatre-- which are both going to be in-class essays. Woohoo!!! Only one more paper after tomorrow though! We don't have a final in my last class of the week so I am so close to being done. Now if only Jay would send us the prompts so I could get started...

Days 46 and 47

Day 46 aka longest day ever.

Monday started off with politics as usual-- except that this is was last class! It's so sad... I have this week and finals and then I have to go home. :( Our outing was the Imperial War Museum where we focused on WWI and WWII propaganda. We went in the trench experience exhibit, which made me want to vomit since they added smell to the ordeal... it was awful. War is just so unreal to me. I still can't even begin to understand why we do it. What lands and ideas and material things can be worth as much as human life? The answer should be nothing, but it's not to the politicians.

Anyway, after the outing I went as quickly as I could to Pineapple Dance Studios, where auditions for a Royal Caribbean Cruise production of Hairspray were taking place. I obviously had none of my audition stuff with me, so I had bought some sheet music to Come to Your Senses (again) and Love Song as my pop song since it went over so well at karaoke. And I went to Rymans and bought some cardstock to staple a random facebook profile pic (thanks Paula) to double as a headshot and my resume onto. Lindsay was going to come as well, but she decided not to at the last minute because she didn't have a headshot with her and didn't have a song that she thought was good to audition for Hairspray with. I figured that since I was going for the experience, it really didn't matter if my "headshot" was on special paper or not, or whether my song was good for Hairspray. I used Come to Your Senses because it's in my rep and I love performing it. I got to the audition around 12:45pm. They were supposed to start registration for the open call at 12:30 but decided to wait until all of the private auditions had shown up. So I waited until 2:15 to sign up, but there had been people waiting in a back room since 9am, so they wanted to let them go first. But people who had even gotten there after me wormed their way into that line. They had formed three lines and we ended up merging them once everyone knew that we had all gotten there around the same time. I ended up being #164 (they started the open call at #98) so I was not happy that a lot of people had cut. When I auditioned last summer in New York (http://psamandacarlee.blogspot.com/2010/07/if-i-can-make-it-there-ill-make-it.html) they had us sign up on two different sheets so that order was kept. So London, you should learn something from the Americans. So they started taking people in one at a time and told us that to move things along we would get one song. I sat there for another 2 hours and waited my turn. I had class at 4, but I had told the professor that I was going ahead of time. They called my number at about 4:15, and I went in at 4:20. I sang my 32 bars and it went really well. I miss singing so much. Thank God for Scott Zane Smith's classes. And then they said thank you, which I pretty much knew was going to happen because they had asked for 5'3" and under for Tracy (the role I was going for) so, again, I just went for the experience. I RAN to the tube and almost all the way to class and got there around 4:45pm. So I only missed about half of the class, and like I said, she had excused me. We got ready to go see War Horse , which Julia had told me about earlier, so I was really excited to go. And we also discussed the play from last week and got our critiques back-- I got a 98% on mine!! So, as usual, I am doing the best in theatre amongst all my classes.

We walked to the theatre on Drury Lane (I now know the muffin man). Our seats were in the circle above stage left, but we still had a good view of most of the stage. I absolutely LOVED the production. The puppets were amazing, as were the actors/puppeteers playing the horses. Sitting above and house right was cool because we got to see a lot of the intricate movements of the puppets, whereas if we were in center seats but further back we would have gotten the spectacle instead of seeing the way it was done. It is a fantastic play, and I loved the musical elements to it. It's not really a musical since the songs are environmental rather than plot-driving, but the mood was set so well by them. Having gone horseback riding the day before, and to the imperial war museum that morning, everything seemed to work out perfectly since the play is about a horse that is volunteered to serve in WWI.

After the play we got together for wine and cheese in Flat C as our final theatre discussion/ party for the end of term. We ended up discussing it until past midnight! It was a great way to end the semester in terms of theatre class.

Day 47 aka here are all the americans.

The last class of Media and Society was stupid. We watched two movies and waited to have a small individual talk with the professor about our thesis and grades. I am about 99% sure he has not looked at a single thing we've done this semester because he told all of us that we were "at the B+/A- level and if [we] just gave an extra push we would probably get an A- or even an A". Aka you haven't read a single assignment we've turned in all semester. I'm really worried about my final paper because we haven't done anything but talk about art in his class, and the subject is Media and Society. It's supposed to be a SMAD class. Anyway, all I have to do is write my final paper and do my part of our group presentation on the day of the final, which is just another way for him to do nothing in the span of two hours since our final presentation is about what we felt like when we got here and how we feel now. Catherine came up with a really cool idea to get everyone in the class in one group, so we're doing that. I already made my slide for the slide show, so now I just have to write my words and figure out the stories I want to tell. More on that later.

After class, I worked on getting some postcards done and on updating this blog. We had a group movie at 7:15pm at the Master House Museum, which is a cinema museum that was built in what used to be the Master's house of the Workhouse Charlie Chaplin and his family worked at in Kennington. It was a really funny yet really weird movie called Tamara Drewe, which was apparently based on a popular comic strip from The Guardian in 2005.

Following the movie, we went to the Sports Cafe in Piccadilly Circus. It was really cool and VERY American. It was college night, so it was basically like being at JMU except for the whole buying alcohol thing. They had beer pong, but we got there too late to sign up. We started the dance party downstairs and had a ton of fun dancing and hanging out. Tomorrow I'll be writing a paper, finishing the HP movies for Thursday night (!) and taking the group picture for the Madison House portraits!

Days 41-45

So I haven't blogged in a week. Sorry. Except this is mostly for me to remember my trip, so I'm not really sorry. Also it should be noted that right now I'm blogging because I'm procrastinating. So yeah...

Day 41 aka to sleep or not to sleep? sleep. to shop or not to shop? SHOP.

I woke up not feeling well at all so I decided to go back to sleep and I slept until like 12. Which was good, but I was really hoping to go to the V&A, but no worries because Catherine and I are making plans to go on another afternoon. So I woke up and got ready to go to Primark and New Look with Sarah to see the deals and get a pair of boots for horseback riding in Edinburgh on Sunday! Primark was CRAZY-- think like good quality stuff but walmart-at-jmu-on-move-in-day experience wise. Apparently it is like that every day though. I waited 20 minutes to try things on and another 20 to pay. Sarah waited about an hour to return something because they have the customer service desks in weird places and also do checkout there as well. Then we went to New Look which was AWESOME. They have a 10% student discount, except on sale items, so I didn't get to use it. I also got the cutest pair of tan/gray boots. :) After our weekly meeting, we watched some more HP to get ready for the midnight release on Thursday!

Day 42 aka harry potter all over my newsfeed.

We went to a graffiti "gallery" with Jay for our outing in culture by design. It used to be a Eurostar terminal under the Waterloo station, but then they stopped using it. So some street artists had a big exhibit there, and now people just graffiti it all the time. It's actually a legal place to do so. Which kind of makes it less cool-- I feel like a big part of street art is the danger and the cleverness of getting away with it. After getting back from class, we watched the live stream of the Harry Potter premiere. If I hadn't had class today, then I would have gone to the premiere, because it was like 15 minutes away from my house. But you had to have been there since Wednesday morning, and I couldn't skip class to sleep on the pavement in the torrential downpour. After watching coverage of the premiere, we got ready to go to Edinburgh the next morning! It was an early night, since we had to be at King's Cross Station at 8am.

Day 43 aka EDINBURGH!!!!

Edinburgh, Scotland is the most beautiful place on Earth. Well, maybe not, but it's the most beautiful place I have ever been. See for yourself:

the castle was gorgeous.

and so was the view from its walls. including WATER :)

So the train ride was 5 hours long, but in keeping with the "this trip is mostly about harry potter" theme, Sarah and I rode the Hogwarts Express.

i thought it would be a faster way to get to scotland

Just kidding! But we did get our picture at Platform 9 3/4!

It was lameish because they're doing major reconstruction at King's Cross due to the Olympics next summer, so they had a fake brick wall, even though it is usually on a real one. But we did it anyway.

So after 5 hours on the train and a walk in the rain to the hotel, we were finally on our way to do stuff! First we went to Scottish Parliament, which is MUCH more public than the Houses in Westminster. The building was built in 2004, so it was very modern, but I think the architect tried to use way too many concepts at once. I did like that the building kind of grows out of the ground, though. And it was cool that it is on the opposite end of the Royal Mile (the nickname for High Street) from the Edinburgh Castle. We watched the final space shuttle launch live on TV in the Parliament Cafe while waiting for the second tour group to finish. Cool. After Parliament, we went on a bus tour of the city, but we were all SO tired from the long day that we started falling asleep. However, sleep is for the weak is the other motto of this trip, so we went to Mum's for dinner, which was a diner-ish place with traditional Scottish food. I did not try the haggis, but some of the group did. I had bangers and mash and a local beer. Yum! After that, we went to a bar that was really close to our hotel, because they were having karaoke night! So we all did some songs and danced and it was great fun! The Scottish people seemed to love us, even though we basically took over the scene... they even found some American flag cardboard crowns that some of us wore... it was dumb, but really fun anyway! I sang Love Song and everyone was singing along and it was really cool... and then I won the £20 raffle! And we tried to get the birthday girl (Courtney) to sing, but instead she had a shot at midnight. So, good enough.

Day 44 aka royal treatment

Today we went to the Edinburgh Castle! It was gorgeous, at the top of the Royal Mile and set into the hill. The view of the estuary and the town from there was gorgeous.

After the castle and a free taste of whiskey inside their store, we went off on a walking tour of Edinburgh led by Dr. Butt. We walked to Greenmarket and through the center of the city for a while, enjoying the (very few hours of) sunshine and the city. After eating lunch at a pub with a great view, we went shopping on the Royal Mile, and got some great gifts for people. Hint hint. After all that, we were super tired so we went back to the hotel for a nap. Good thing because then came the monsoon. It was literally raining so hard that when I stepped out to try to meet up with some people for Courtney's birthday dinner I made it about a block before I had to turn around and go back. I had pools in my sneakers and my clothes were soaked. Even with an umbrella and rain jacket. Gross. I went back to the hotel and got a small pizza on the way back. Then I finally took that nap and it lasted until about 9:30. At which point it was still raining like crazy so I stayed in and read in our comfy hotel room. No regrets.

Day 45 aka frustration. but worth it.

Sunday was finally horseback riding day! A group of us decided to get lunch around 12pm, so we could walk to the bus stop and catch the 12:56 bus. Too bad that the restaurant decided to serve us at 1:05pm. So we got the 1:30 bus, and seeing as the bus stop didn't have a complete map, I wasn't sure of the name of the stop. I only knew that we were taking the bus to the Liberton Cemetary. Apparently everything outside of the city is named Liberton. We asked the bus driver where to get off to hit Liberton Drive, but I think he thought we meant Liberton Road and told us to get off there. So then we started walking the wrong direction, got a GPS map on Jessica's phone, and finally started the right way. Then it led us in crazy places, and we were lostish again. Meanwhile, we've been walking for about 1/2 an hour uphill. We FINALLY got to the farm 15 minutes late, so we weren't able to have our full hour that we paid for. But we did have about 40 minutes, so that was good. It was SO beautiful riding along the trails and seeing the mountain (Arthur's Seat). All the frustration was worth it. It started raining the minute we got off the horses, so we took cabs back (good idea, because it took like 10 minutes and didn't involve us knowing how to get back). Then we got our suitcases and went straight to the train station for another long ride home.

Days 37, 38, 39 and 40

Wow... can't believe it's already been 40 days here :( I never want to leave!!

Day 37 aka we're from another country
The Harry Potter exhibit was a rip off. First of all, it was supposedly free if you dressed up as HP characters. Apparently our costumes weren't good enough because we didn't have official merchandise. I'm sorry we didn't A) spend tons of money to have an "official" school girl costume b) WE'RE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY c) they totally let in a ton of British kids who were just as dressed up as we were. Then, we got in and there was a HUGE line to get your picture taken on a broom catching a golden snitch. Which is awesome but the line did not move. So we got out of it. The exhibit itself had about 10 HP film props and costumes. The rest were Legos and toy companies trying to sell you games. Luckily one lady let us pretend to ride the Nimbus2000 and Firebolt that were on display to be sold. So not the real props, but better than waiting in line.

my dork is showing so much right now.

Anyway, we left the HP room and the people who were BEHIND us in the photo op line were just getting in the door of the room. We toured the rest of the museum, which Sarah identified with a lot more than me, having never seen Batman movies before Christian Bale and not having seen Star Wars. Don't kill me. I got to pose with a giant Oscar statue and we got to sit on the couch with The Simpsons.

So that was cool. Then Sarah and I bought wands so we can bring them to the movie premiere and midnight release and just let our freak flag fly. Don't judge me...

After getting home a group of us went to a comedy club in Leicester Square and saw 5 comedians perform... the host was from New Orleans so he threw a couple of American jokes in for us. The 2nd to last guy was HILARIOUS. I thought he was even better than the headliner, who was still awesome. Afterwards we finally finished Harry Potter 2 and I went to bed early to go to church in a Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the morning.

Day 38 aka what time is it???
Well. I missed my alarm and woke up at 11 to Sarah asking me why I was still in bed. Oops. I will try to go again later... apparently they do the divine liturgy every day, so I might go on Wednesday. So instead I did nothing all day for a while. It was beautiful. Sarah and I met up with some of our friends for a "flash mob" at the Millenium Bridge.... but only like 60 people showed up. But we slow danced anyway on the bridge to our ipods and it was fun. :)

I can't really remember what we did after the flash mob... oh well.

Day 39 aka independence day!

Monday we watched the Prime Minister's questions on TV. The MPs are SO RUDE... it's like in Mean Girls when they cut to the clips where she imagines her life in the animal world. They will like talk and jeer over the PM or the opposition leader! It's ridiculous. AND we got back our papers. Mo should take a page out of Dr. Bradshaw's book because this was a 10 page paper due last week and we got it back in 7 days. Mo still has all of our papers from the 2nd day of class onwards. Afterwards Sarah and I went to Chipotle to celebrate being American! And got margaritas in the middle of the day! Nothing says America like burritos and day drinking. So then I went to TK Maxx, which was not as good as TJ Maxx at home. Then we went to theatre, and took a quiz on A Servant of Two Masters. When I heard about people having to read it for 211, they always complained... but I really liked it! And THEN we saw a British update called One Man, Two Guvn'rs. It was SO FUNNY. And in the spirit of commedia, they broke the fourth wall and improved a lot and it was just so great. The lead actor reminded me of Chris Farley and he did a fantastic job dealing with the improv and talking to the audience. At one point he (rhetorically) asked if anyone had a sandwich, and a guy threw one at him. And he just went: "This is the National Theatre!!! What are you doing??!" So funny. After we got back, Sarah and I started watching Harry Potter 3, but I went to bed before it was over since I had class in the morning.

Day 40 aka hey we're just going to walk you around in circles in a town you don't know but you can figure out how to get home on your own!

I have really come to loathe British Media and Society (the class, not the subject). I feel like we never talk about anything relevant, and if we do, it's just in passing to some digression. And we have really only done art as media. And now I'm ranting. But anyway, for the outing we went to Notting Hill Gate, which is famous as a film location for Notting Hill and other movies, and as a hangout for indie artists and famous artists of the 60s and 70s. Lindsay was going nuts because she loves the movie Notting Hill. If you remember, I commented on watching it while we were in Bath, so it was cool to see where the film was made. However, a lot of these outings are getting to be tedious because they're like "this is where this USED to be" etc. And it was SO HOT outside. After lunch and working on this blog (check out pictures/video on my older posts now!) I went with Catherine to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. Evensong is a small service that they do daily and the Westminster Boys Choir sing at it and it's really nice. I wish we had actually gotten to see it (we got there about a minute late so we had seats near the door and blocked by an altar), but we got to hear it and say the prayers anyway. Afterwards, we went to the Houses of Parliament! Which is exactly like when I went to Congress in 12th grade and sat in the gallery... they just talk and talk forever, and we walked in in the middle of a vote, which was unexciting. But I'm glad we experienced it! And they had comfier seats in the gallery in the House of Commons than in the Capitol. Tomorrow I'm heading to the V&A and going to Primark and New Look with Sarah in the afternoon.

Ta ta!

Days 34, 35 and 36

It's about 5:30 on Saturday right now and i am WIPED. I have barely even done anything today but the days and days of gogogogogogo have finally caught up with me...

Day 34 aka Mexican Fiestaaa
I took the opportunity to sleep in on Wednesday after so long and all those papers. It was nice. I'm starting to get worried that I'm not doing enough while I'm here... but I literally can barely function. So after putting off grocery shopping (yet again) and watched this wonderful montage Khyre made from footage and pictures of RENT. It was so beautiful and he made exactly the memories I have of that show come alive-- family, love, sadness, but like a bittersweet sad, HOLY SHIT WE'RE IN RENT, etc.

Except none of the pain of my bruised finger! Which is still purple and yellow under the nail. I pretended to start working on homework for a while (aka facebook) and actually did work on some Lord and Taylor logistics for the Back to School fashion show I'm helping Lana put together. Then I CLEANED. I cleaned my room, I threw out all the papers I kept for posterity and knew I wouldn't read again. I cleaned my closet. I cleaned the living room with the girls. Why all this cleaning, you ask? BECAUSE IT WAS FIESTA NIGHT AT THE MAD HOUSE. :) Actually this evening was one of my favorites of being in London simply because of good friends and good food and lots of laughs. After the roomies got home, it was time to start prepping our house and dish (we were hosting because of our huge, beautiful common room and proximity to the lobby of the house). We were to cook the tacos. Sarah to the rescue! She basically ran the kitchen as the four of us worked to make the meat, veggies and sides for these bad boys, and to make enough for 28 people. Each floor had a different job. So we had the main dish, flat a had chips and homemade salsa, queso and guacamole dips, flat c had rice and beans and brought some chilli peppers, flat d made san gria (alcoholic and non alcoholic) and flat e made chicken and cheese or just cheese quesadillas. Now, Mexican food is not normally my favorite, but with so many options, no matter what, everyone was satisfied from the vegetarians to the gluten free to the people who did not want alcohol but wanted yummy sangria. It also was Alissa's 21st birthday, so a bunch of people went to a club afterwards. I didn't really feel like going out since I had class in the morning and Emily was feeling sick so I stayed in and cleaned the pots and counters so we wouldn't have a gross mess to deal with in the morning. Good thing I didn't go because they ended up not finding the club and walking a mile away from it.

Day 35 aka coolest (non)outing ever.
In Culture by Design, Jay left and brought in a friend and colleague who is a television writer and playwright named Stephen Lally. He did a masterclass with us on TV shows. We examined the visual components of the teaser (the opening part of the show, after the previously on... and before the opening credits) and the differences in some real life examples, comparing British and American directors. After that, we got the opportunity to create our own tv show teasers in groups, using a brainstorm session from the whole class. It was so much fun. I think Haylie even said she had found her calling. It was fast paced, we got a lot of feedback, and it was really fun to create entire rules about these people's personalities and behavior within like two hours in order to create a three minute sequence. After class I finally went grocery shopping and bought enough food to hopefully last me until we go to Edinburgh on the July 8th. At 7:30 we went to St. Martin in the Fields, which is a church that is really a music venue for classical musicians. It was very plain and Protestanty inside but the music was nice... the concert was super long though. Afterwards, Sarah and I watched the second Harry Potter movie, since we are attempting to finish watching all seven before the midnight release of the final movie. And then we made some plans for the upcoming free weekend!

Day 36 aka Camden take 2
I have to be honest, I do not really enjoy Camden as much as Sarah does. But I went because I wanted to go see what it was about besides when we went in Jay's class. I think mostly because all the clothes are either really weird, really tiny or really expensive. I did get some cool and cheap jewelry and used my boss haggling skills to lower the prices. We also bought some Chinese food, which was better than what we've had around the rest of London but definitely not as good as in the US... so July 24th I am definitely getting some sesame chicken or something. I got back around 3 and actually started my homework for Monday, which is a review of the production of Macbeth we saw in Stratford. I am about a quarter of the way done with it.. oops. Emily started feeling sick today so we're hoping she doesn't have anything too bad and that the rest of us don't get sick. :( I met up with Catherine, Gina, Jessica, Courtney and Allison for dinner at a place called Spaghetti House, which was awesome. I had sun-dried tomato noodles with chicken and asparagus. Delish. After dinner, a few of us went to a pub called The Crown, which has its own off-site brewery. I got cider, which was good but really strong... I felt tipsy after one pint. Although, I did drink it in only about 20 minutes and I usually take longer than that. After the pub, Sarah and I finished watching the second Harry Potter movie since we didn't finish it the night before and got excited about dressing up as Harry Potter characters and going to the London Film Museum's special, one day Harry Potter exhibit in the morning.